ABSTRACT
This chapter continues the account of the border between public and private. It argues that the most satisfactory way to comprehend conflict and tragedy is to fit them into the total pattern of life with its particular goals. There are private narratives and rituals. Another quality of narratives interweaves public and private life. The idea is not that narratives will always be of a certain kind, but that narratives of both kinds help guide interaction between public and private life. Religious traditions have rich depositories of stories about public-private interaction. Without a way of judging between narratives or traditions of morality, one story or tradition is a good as another; one society's institutions of privacy as good as another's. Institutions are relatively stable associations of social roles and expectations, providing important connections between public and private.
